Apprenticeship and Conservation Incentives

Apprentice programs offer a method to encourage responsible individual behavior by laying the foundation for successful collective property rights. Apprenticeship has three purposes: to restrict the rate of entry, to affect the quality of the participant, and to create the conditions for collective action for sustainability. Apprenticeship could be an important fishery management tool, particularly in decentralized, adaptive management regimes that require ongoing, multi-party negotiation for success. It is not vocational training; instead it serves a public purpose: to create the conditions for stewardship and participation in management. This perception of collective property right mimics customary practice in some successful traditional fisheries such as the Maine lobster fishery where customary practice has been demonstrated both to have conservation benefits and to lower enforcement costs. Case information from Maine’s new, statutory lobster apprentice program is discussed. Apprenticeship creates conditions for responsible behavior by creating a stable population that can develop long term assurances about expected behavior and can develop credible internal monitoring and sanctions. In addition to requiring a personal investment of time, it provides information about fishing ethics and non-fishing information about basic biology, ecology, and participation in the management system. This, because it changes the frame of reference, should affect individual behavior both fishing and as participants in management. Apprenticeship focuses on the individual fishing as the principal actor in conservation. The apprenticeship approach bolsters both co-management and, for that matter, conventional limited entry programs as well

Building a Sustainable Seafood System for Maine

In this article, Robin Alden notes that Maine could have one of the premier marine food systems in the world. However, that means adequate steward­ship of the Gulf of Maine ecosystem and diversifying the fishing industry beyond lobster by creating innovative public policy and a food system that supports community fishing

Charting a Course for the Future of Maine\u27s Fisheries: An Interview with Commissioner Robin Alden

In a January, 1996 interview, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, Robin Alden shared her concerns about the direction of federal fisheries management and her goals for building a more dynamic and self-managing system here in Maine. In particular, Alden described the recent legislation which creates zone councils and an apprenticeship system in Maine’s lobster fishery. Alden articulated a direction for Maine’s fisheries that challenges conventional fisheries management and as such, is being watched closely by fisheries managers in Maine as well as elsewhere in the U.S. and overseas

Developing a Cooperative Research Agenda for Maine’s Commercial Fisheries

This past year the Maine Department of Marine Resources sponsored a unique series of meetings involving fishermen, academic and government scientists, and fishery managers. The goal was to define a shared research agenda for Maine’s marine fisheries. Robin Alden and Linda Mercer summarize the results of these meetings. In doing so they address the question: “What do we need to know to properly manage Maine\u27s major marine resources?” Alden and Mercer also conclude that the collaborative process these meetings helped to establish is one of the keys to the successful management of Maine’s marine resources

Landings, vol. 30, no. 11

Landings content emphasizes science, history, resource sustainability, economic development, and human interest stories related to Maine\u27s lobster industry. The newsletter emphasizes lobstering as a traditional, majority-European American lifeway with an economic and social heritage unique to the coast of Maine. The publication focuses how ongoing research to engage in sustainable, non-harmful, and non-wasteful commercial fishing practices benefit both the fishery and Maine\u27s coastal legacy. For more information, please visit the Maine Lobstermen’s Community Alliance (MLCA) website

Apprenticeship and Conservation Incentives

Apprentice programs offer a method to encourage responsible individual behavior by laying the foundation for successful collective property rights. Apprenticeship has three purposes: to restrict the rate of entry, to affect the quality of the participant, and to create the conditions for collective action for sustainability. Apprenticeship could be an important fishery management tool, particularly in decentralized, adaptive management regimes that require ongoing, multi-party negotiation for success. It is not vocational training; instead it serves a public purpose: to create the conditions for stewardship and participation in management. This perception of collective property right mimics customary practice in some successful traditional fisheries such as the Maine lobster fishery where customary practice has been demonstrated both to have conservation benefits and to lower enforcement costs. Case information from Maine's new, statutory lobster apprentice program is discussed. Apprenticeship creates conditions for responsible behavior by creating a stable population that can develop long term assurances about expected behavior and can develop credible internal monitoring and sanctions. In addition to requiring a personal investment of time, it provides information about fishing ethics and non-fishing information about basic biology, ecology, and participation in the management system. This, because it changes the frame of reference, should affect individual behavior both fishing and as participants in management. Apprenticeship focuses on the individual fishing as the principal actor in conservation. The apprenticeship approach bolsters both co-management and, for that matter, conventional limited entry programs as well.Keywords: Apprenticeship, entry controls, lobster, co-management, conservation, property right

MR446: Profiles of Sixteen Eastern Maine Fishing Communities

In the United States, a number of legal mandates require social impact assessments of proposed federal fisheries management and other actions. However, too often there are insufficient data with which to conduct social impact assessments for fisheries management, in part because these data are expensive and time consuming to collect and social science for SIAs is typically underfunded. To address this lack of data, these authors profiled 16 fish­ing communities in eastern Maine (Vinalhaven, Stonington, Bar Harbor, Northeast Harbor, Southwest Harbor, Bass Harbor, Swan’s Island, Steuben, Winter Harbor, Gouldsboro, Milbridge, Jonesport, Beals, Bucks Harbor, Lubec, and Eastport), focusing on the communities in eastern Maine currently or historically engaged in the New England groundfish fishery. The profiles are based on a rapid assessment to document the current infrastructure and updated with social, economic, and demographic data available from the 2010 U.S. Census and with 2011 state and federal license data.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/aes_miscreports/1026/thumbnail.jp